Study of the U/Am separation with supported calix[6]arene in the aim of urinary actinides analysis.

The aim of this work is to propose an alternative radiochemical procedure for the analysis of U, Pu and Am in urine, which is one of the controls used to monitor workers exposed to risk of internal contamination with actinides. Previous studies have demonstrated the extraction efficiency of these molecules towards uranium and plutonium, the affinity of calix[6]arenes bearing hydroxamic acid groups (LHH3) and carboxylic groups (LCH3) towards americium were studied in this paper by solvent extraction. The results showed that LHH3 and LCH3 have a very good affinity for americium and enhance the possibility of separating Pu from U and Am.